Cherish While You Can
by Ukyou Kuonji
Summary: A FireTripper (Rumik World) fanfiction: Suzuko's adoptive parents mourn her loss... even though she is not truly lost.


Cherish While You Can  
a Rumik World fanfiction by Ukyou Kuonji  
-----  
We stand at the threshold of our daughter's empty room. She has   
left us, as mysteriously and suddenly as she came into our lives   
a dozen years ago.  
  
Twelve years... it may seem like a long time, but believe us, it's   
never enough.  
  
We were appoaching middle age even then, a childless couple with   
very little hope of bearing and raising a child of our own.   
Publicly, we were starting do make jokes about us checking stork   
cages at the zoo or cabbage patches in the rural prefectures.   
Privately, we were very nearly that desperate.  
  
And then... we found her. Not quite under a cabbage patch, mind   
you... more in a sort of culvert, a small grassy plot underneath   
a web of highways and bridges. A little girl, about four years   
old, hardly able to talk, dazed from fear and confusion. The only   
thing she had with her, besides the tattered robe that she wore,   
was a small brass bell, somewhat tarnished and smudged with soot.  
  
We notified the authorities about her, and were told they would   
make efforts to discover the girl's origins, but they gave her   
to us until such time. They warned us that it might be a while...   
and it was hard for us not to smile at that. They could take   
forever, and we wouldn't mind...  
  
We raised her as we would have our own child, and gave her the   
best name we could think of: Suzuko. Beautiful child. She was   
beautiful, and grew more so every day. Her beauty was enhanced   
by its frailty: we were ever mindful of the fact that someday,   
without warning, she might have to go back from wherever it was   
she came from. With that in mind, we did our best to cherish   
every moment we spent with her, as if this would be the last.  
  
It was a ticklish thing one day when she asked us where she came   
from.  
  
"Do you mean where babies come from?"  
  
"No, mama... where did *I* come from?"  
  
We sat her down, and told her. It turned out she had suspected   
something, if only from the fact that we had no baby photos of her.   
It was just the two of us for a while and then, abruptly, there she   
was at age four, right between us.  
  
We gave back the bell that she had arrived with, and she fastened   
it to her schoolbook. From that day forward, it became her emblem.   
That bell meant Suzuko was near, and it was the most precious sound   
in the world to us.  
  
We watched as she grew up, from a beautiful child to a lovely young   
woman. How proud we were of her! Studious, and caring to a fault,   
especially to Shuhei, the neighbor's young son. They had this   
special bond between them; she understood him better than even   
his parents did sometimes. It was amusing to hear Shuhei proclaim   
that he was going to marry Suzuko one day. Perhaps, were they the   
same age, it might have been.  
  
But such thoughts are put away today as too painful.  
  
For today... they disappeared. Without a trace.  
  
Someone claimed to have seen them walking hand-in-hand near the   
edge of town. There was an explosion in one of the liquid petrol   
tanks in the area; they may have been lost in the accident. Someone   
else confirmed that she was there at the time, but in the arms of a   
young man, which surprises us... we thought we knew all we could   
about her, and we never knew of any young man.  
  
Not that it matters now. All we can do is comfort Shuhei's parents   
as best we can; it eases our own pain to share it with others. And   
we have something to share with you, as well:  
  
Those of you with children, remember to cherish them while you can.   
They will be gone from you all too soon. Love them, care for them,   
teach them the truth. They deserve no less.  
  
Those of you without, there are friends and parents who you must   
remember as well. Let their words, their faces, their smiles and   
tears burn themselves onto your memory. It will be all we have   
left to us someday.  
  
Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a shrine to set up...  
  
*****  
  
Dedicated to my own (adoptive) parents, and our own son Dan-chan.  
  
After all this time as a writer of exclusively Ranma fanfiction,   
I seem to be going through a number of obscure series these days;   
first Armitage III, then Greenwood, now this.  
  
I guess I should apologize for writing such downbeat and didactic   
stuff... or at least console you with the fact that it's quite short.   
Consider it a 'bear-with-me-while-I-get-this-off-my-chest' sort of   
diversion, like the Incident... I'll get back to the Greenwood series   
soon enough.  
  
Itsu mo,  
Ucchan ^_^  



End file.
